For more than twenty-five years, After the Fact has provided a time-tested, innovative approach to guiding students through American history and the methods used to study it. In dramatic episodes that move chronologically through American history, this best-selling book examines a broad variety of topics like oral evidence, photographs, ecological data, films and television programs, church and town records, census data, and novels. Whether for the introductory survey or for a historical methods course, After the Fact is the ideal text for any instructor who wants to introduce his or her students to what it is that historians actually do when studying American history.

New to This Edition

A new chapter examines quilting in the 1840s and 1850s as an aspect of material culture.

Primary Source Investigator, a CD for students, features mini-documentaries and hundreds of primary sources such as documents, images, maps, and charts. PSI offers the opportunity to investigate and work with the sources, take notes on them, then craft a paper or presentation. PSI is packaged free with each new copy of After the Fact. Three chapters from past editions of After the Fact are now included on the CD: "The 'Noble Savage' and the Artist's Canvas," "Huey Generis," and "Instant Watergate."

New questions at the end of each chapter help students take full advantage of the Primary Source Investigator CD.

The use of a second color livens up the design of the text.

Features

Readers are introduced to the explanations and interpretations of history--the detective work--that most textbooks omit. The approach casts students as apprentice historians.

Both the humanistic and the scientific sides of American history are explored.

For more than twenty-five years, After the Fact has provided a time-tested, innovative approach to guiding students through American history and the methods used to study it. In dramatic episodes that move chronologically through American history, this best-selling book examines a broad variety of topics like oral evidence, photographs, ecological data, films and television programs, church and town records, census data, and novels. Whether for the introductory survey or for a historical methods course, After the Fact is the ideal text for any instructor who wants to introduce his or her students to what it is that historians actually do when studying American history.

New to This Edition

A new chapter examines quilting in the 1840s and 1850s as an aspect of material culture.

Primary Source Investigator, a CD for students, features mini-documentaries and hundreds of primary sources such as documents, images, maps, and charts. PSI offers the opportunity to investigate and work with the sources, take notes on them, then craft a paper or presentation. PSI is packaged free with each new copy of After the Fact. Three chapters from past editions of After the Fact are now included on the CD: "The 'Noble Savage' and the Artist's Canvas," "Huey Generis," and "Instant Watergate."

New questions at the end of each chapter help students take full advantage of the Primary Source Investigator CD.

The use of a second color livens up the design of the text.

Features

Readers are introduced to the explanations and interpretations of history--the detective work--that most textbooks omit. The approach casts students as apprentice historians.

Both the humanistic and the scientific sides of American history are explored.